


Shot at Dusk (and Loving It)

by russomaha



Category: Jupiter Ascending (2015)
Genre: (Finally!), Alternate Universe - Bodyguard, Bodyguard, Dorks in Love, F/M, First Time, Fluff and Humor, Getting Together, spring is in the air
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-08
Updated: 2020-03-08
Packaged: 2021-02-28 22:41:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,180
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23054911
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/russomaha/pseuds/russomaha
Summary: Queen accuses Officer Wise of a crime against humanity and as a punishment he finally gets laid.
Relationships: Jupiter Jones/Caine Wise
Comments: 12
Kudos: 56





	Shot at Dusk (and Loving It)

_Hello, lovely people! Happy March 8, aka International Women’s Day that isn’t celebrated anywhere but our country! I wish I could give a Caine (or two) to each and every one of you, but unfortunately, I can’t (please, forward all your questions and complaints to the Wachowski sisters and Mr. Channing M. Tatum). So instead, I’m giving you this story._

Jupiter considers herself a patient enough person. If her life with her rambunctious and opinionated (read: utterly judgmental and not one to mince words) Russian family taught her anything, it is that patience is a virtue.

(And also that revenge is the dish best served cold, but that’s a story for another day.)

Nevertheless, no matter how patient Jupiter may be, both she and her vibrator are getting tired of Caine’s ‘I’m closer to a dog than I am to you’ attitude.

_Closer to a dog, really? Well, where’s your tail wagging then, buddy?_

Besides, humans share ninety-eight percent of their DNA with pigs, yet something tells her she wouldn’t have all these _feelings_ for _a swine._

Even a fully human one.

And the lycantant is definitely not a swine, which he has proven time and time again, risking his own life in order to get her precious royal rear out of highly unpleasant life-threatening situations like medical check-ups, parent/children meet-ups, weddings, and other assorted assassination attempts. Not to mention Wise’s loyalty to Stinger Apini, an old buddy of his, for whom Caine risked life and limb as well, trying to get his former commander back into the Legion. The lycantant also tried – once again risking his neck – to help Stinger get a cure for his terminally ill daughter Kiza, who is a sassy menace, but still deserves her healthily ever after.

Apparently, putting his life in danger for the people he cares about is the guy’s shtick. Who can _not_ love that?!

And those fluffy ears of his are so endearingly cute…

So, understandably, there are _feelings._

As inappropriate as they are for the queen to have for her subordinate and employee, Jupiter’s not made of stone, for fuck’s sake!

Unfortunately, Caine is too much of _a splice_ to react to her awkward hints and even more awkward scents. So for a while now – far too long a while for Jupiter’s liking – they’ve been stuck in a frustrating stalemate. The lycantant is way too reserved and cautious, – not without a good reason: his life taught him a few harsh lessons in the past, – while the queen is unwilling to push, because there’s an ocean of difference between seducing a guy and flat-out telling him to please, for the love of all that is holy, just fuck her already when he might actually take it as a command, snap a quick salute and execute the order.

So she is left with her good old magic wand and sappy romance novels.

The queen’s suffering is exacerbated by the fact that Commander Apini, now Head of the Royal Guard (also known as Sweetie-Pie Honey Badger when Jupiter wants to annoy her elders), made Officer Wise one of Her Majesty’s private bodyguards, since Caine had been the one the queen had protested against the least.

An escort of fully armed guards is a necessity for any royal, Jupiter understands that. It doesn’t mean she _likes_ it. Seriously, how creepy is it to have a bunch of hulking guys follow you everywhere, _all the time,_ being well aware of every freaking bathroom break? Ugh.

So now she’s stuck with Caine being one of them. _Oh, goody._

(That was sarcasm. No matter how glorious Caine looks in that skin-tight, black pseudo-leather, BDSM-esque uniform of his, having his super sensitive lycantant nose following her through every daily motion is more than she bargained for.)

That uniform, though…

Okay, moving on. Back to the story.

Tonight is one of the queen’s rare evenings off, when she doesn’t need to glare some sense into her Privy Council or show her face at social functions or deal with any of her creepy heirs. Hurray! She hastily dismisses her security detail for the night and locks herself up in her private quarters.

Time to whip out a book and enjoy her blissful solitude.

Jupiter settles in the lounge room with a wall of French windows overlooking the garden. She opens one of the widows and breathes in a chestful of fragrant vespertine twilight. The warm evening air is saturated with the scents of blooming stocks, pale, ghost-like butterfly orchids, and the delicate trumpets of honeysuckle. Somewhere in the thick canopies of the bird-cherry trees, nightingales are interweaving their intricate lilting songs into the tapestry of the dusk, luring their lady-friends to come and nest with them already. Their masterful solos are set off and supported by the choir of similarly frisky-minded grasshoppers.

Spring is in the air…

Jupiter feels that stirring in her chest – simultaneously anxious and wonderful, alluring and frightening – that only the season of love can instill in people’s hearts.

But what’s the good of that?

Certain lycantants are so freaking _dense!_

The queen sighs loudly and ensconces herself on one of the couches with her book. Okay, where did she stop? Hmm, the wedding…

Not two minutes later, her reverie is interrupted.

“Your Majesty, this is unsafe,” a certain dense lycantant informs her with gentle reproach, standing outside the window. “You promised not to open these when the guards were not around.”

Jupiter startles, caught. “So I lied,” she harrumphs, shooting Officer Wise a disgruntled look.

“May I stay here to make sure you’re safe?”

“No, you may not.” She was just getting to the good bit, she doesn’t need the lycantant and his nose’s company for that.

“Please, I’ll be very quiet. You won’t even notice me.”

As if _that_ could be true!

The queen contemplates her uninvited visitor, frantically groping for a polite pretext to kick him out without being too obvious or harsh.

“Caine, you look tired,” she observes, studying his rather haggard face. Now, she’s genuinely concerned. Her guards’ job is a stressful one and frequently they don’t get enough sleep. “Go and have some rest, or better yet – turn in for the night.”

“I won’t be able to sleep when I know you’re violating Commander’s security regulations,” he counters firmly, tacking on, “Please?”

Caine’s ‘please’ accompanied by the puppy dog eyes are a formidable combination, but Jupiter’s not in the mood to yield.

“Wise, you’re being a pain in my ass right now,” the queen remarks grumpily.

“I may be a pain, but I’d like to point out, for the record, that I most definitely have never been in your, um, rear. However, I must stick around that body part of yours while it needs protection, otherwise, Commander will do despicable things to mine. _Please?”_

Pleasantly surprised by his teasing playfulness, Jupiter relents.

“Fine, you may stay. On one condition, though: you will take a nap. Those dark smudges under your eyes are either really bad mascara or a telltale sign that you sorely need some quality time with your pillow.”

“It’s probably the latter, but…”

“Not buts! Take the spare couch and lie down. Either you doze off or I will rat you out to Apini and he will send you on vacation!”

“Not vacation! Anything but vacation!”

Jupiter cackles evilly. The queen is well aware that being sent on vacation is Caine’s second-biggest fear after being sent back to the Deadlands and sometimes she takes advantage of that knowledge. Workaholics are both the worst – and the best.

She snaps her fingers and authoritatively points at the couch opposite to hers, “Down, boy!”

Caine snorts a laugh – good, at least he understands it was a joke; _progress!_ – but obediently spreads himself on the couch to his full length, which is _a lot_. Not two minutes pass and the lycantant is out like a candle. The promptness with which the guard nods off proves that she was right to coerce him to sleep. The guy has no idea how to take proper care of himself!

With that problem solved, Jupiter once again gets engrossed in her reading.

Much to the queen’s dismay, the book she’s reading now has proven to be an outstanding shit but she’s too far in to just cut her losses and quit wasting her time on this rubbish.

 _What is wrong with authors?!_ They have no idea what _not_ to do to keep their readers from bitter disappointment! They commit all kinds of atrocities, both to their characters and to the poor souls misfortunate enough to read their books: they can build excellent sexual tension only to fade to black in the end, they can turn a wonderful, light-hearted protagonist into a prostitute, they can give a gruesome death to the only charismatic character in the third installment of their god-awful dystopian trilogy, they can kill off _a cat._

_They can kill off a cat._

What kind of monster should a writer be to kill a nice, fluffy, helpless kitten? Okay, the cat was an adult one and died of old age, but the point still stands: the author was a monster. There’s nothing sacred for some people!

But this story – this one takes the cake.

Who blue-balls their poor audience along with the female protagonist for three full volumes only to – wait for it! – knock the heroine up the first time she has sex with her love interest? Even if the reader doesn’t really appreciate the love interest, – he’s kinda controlling douchebag with all the emotional maturity of a toddler; that other wolfy guy has been so much better (and no, that has nothing to do with Jupiter’s personal preference for a certain pointy-eared lycantant) – they still would want to see the tension eventually _thoroughly_ resolved.

Hoping for furry kink in the saga aimed at teenagers was a lost cause anyway.

Sigh.

Ugh, _authors._ They sure know how to kill their audience’s reading boner.

But back to the book at hand. The main heroine, having steamed in her sexual frustration to the point of the complete loss of common sense, – the feeling Jupiter can relate to; seriously, Caine, how much longer?! – finally gets laid and – bam! – immediately gets pregnant on her wedding night (because her love interest is not only a controlling douchebag but also an idiot, foregoing any kind of protection) with all the joys of morning sickness following promptly after.

_Who does that?!!_

Has no one told the author that readers associate themselves with protagonists? Who would want to associate herself with _that?_ Who would want to imagine herself puking into the toilet instead of enjoying the glories of sex with the looove of her life? No one, that’s who.

Jupiter sure as hell doesn’t, as she hurls the offending book across the room where it hits the wall with a loud, satisfying smack.

Jupiter only reads real-paper hard-covers, all right? It’s a principle.

The smack, though, however satisfying, has an unforeseen effect: Caine, who has been sleeping peacefully up to this point, rockets off his couch and ends up pressing Jupiter into hers, covering her body with his, quivering with adrenaline.

“What was that?” he whispers, looking around with sharp, animalistic awareness – which is a bit frightening, to be honest.

“Nothing,” Jupiter responds hastily, swallowing through her dried-up throat. “That was nothing. What is _this?”_ she pokes the guard in the ribs, nearly breaking her finger against the armoured uniform.

Or it might be just the muscles.

“I thought I heard a shot,” the guard replies in a puzzled voice, unmoving above her. “You smell distressed, but I don’t sense any threat. What was that noise?”

“Um,” Jupiter replies eloquently.

“Your Majesty?”

“Can we forget you heard anything?” she mumbles into his armoured chest. “Please. I really don’t want to explain.”

“But there was no danger?”

“No real danger, no. Only one to my sanity.”

“Huh. Okay.”

With that settled, Jupiter hopes that the incident is over and done with.

Still, Caine doesn’t move.

Well, this is awkward. She had no idea the situation could get any more embarrassing, but apparently it could: Caine’s immediate proximity is doing things to her. You know, _things._ Things that would go unnoticed by a human, but must be _painfully_ obvious to a lycantant.

And the state of affairs is getting progressively direr by the second.

Meanwhile, Caine shows no signs of going anywhere.

_Umm…_

“Are you comfy up there?” she asks eventually.

“I am, Your Majesty, thank you for your concern,” comes a polite reply.

Huh. Evidently, she is the only one who’s awkward here. Not that a small part of Jupiter (one of the southern location) doesn’t enjoy their position, but the lycantant is freaking _heavy._ She’s starting to have trouble breathing (although it might be also due to Caine’s nearness).

_When he’s this close, breathing is overrated._

Her lungs tell her that nope, she _does_ need oxygen after all.

So she tries again. “You know, Caine, I usually go out on a couple of dates before I let a guy go all missionary on me.”

He _evaporates_ off her.

“Gods, you’re so easy,” she chuckles.

“I _am_ easy, Your Majesty,” Caine rumbles good-naturedly. “But you see, I have a rather contradictious nature. That’s why I’m also extremely _hard_.”

“Wha… _Really?!!”_ Jupiter exhales, hope erupting out of her along with the explosive breath. “Wow. _Finally!_ How come I’m still dressed?”

“What about those couple of dates you mentioned?”

“Are you kidding me?! We’re like four life rescues past that! No, five. There was that thing at Stinger’s farm… Six,” Jupiter ticks it off on her fingers. “I forgot about the clinic. And there was also Kalique… So, seven?” She stares at her hands in confusion. “Argh, who cares! You have literally _ages_ of blue-balling to make up for, Wise,” she complains excitedly, shimmying out of her pants. Better pull the bottoms off first – no way in hell she’s giving him any leeway to back out now! “If you intend on doing it any further, I swear to gods, I’ll introduce a new official position at court, one of the Royal Blue-Baller, and appoint you to it,” she grumbles, grabbing the hem of her shirt to take it off.

“You won’t have to,” the lycantant assures, starting to follow the suit. “Although if you did, people would probably just think I was supposed to cheer you up while dancing.”

“Just to make my conscience shut up: was that consent?” she asks to clarify, studying him over the hem lifted to her eyes.

He lets out an exasperated laugh. “That was what _used to be_ consent ages ago. By now it evolved into thinly veiled desperation.”

“Good. You owe me so much sex,” Jupiter enthuses. For a moment, Caine disappears from her view as she tries to wrench the shirt off her head. It catches on one of her earrings, painfully pulling her ear – because _of course_ it does. Jupiter has no idea what she did in her previous life to deserve this, but karma is a bitch. _“Ow!”_

Wrestling with the offending clothes, she rather _feels_ than hears Caine move closer: the sudden rush of heat all over her skin is so galvanizing that her head swims. She sways slightly on her feet, fighting the intangible yet powerful pull urging her to step forward – _towards him_ – only for the fear of face-planting on the floor in her current blindness. She feels Caine’s steadying hands on her forearms, stopping her struggle and proceeding to gently untangle the trapped earring.

“Here,” he murmurs. “I appreciate your enthusiasm, but please, don’t maim yourself.”

When the shirt is finally off and Jupiter can see once again, she finds him naked, too – wow, that was quick and _wooow, that looks kind of awesome!_ – and laughing at her. Somehow, when it’s Caine who’s laughing at her, she doesn’t feel a single trace of embarrassment or self-consciousness.

“Oh, you’re so fucked, Wise!” she threatens, narrowing her eyes.

“Royally?” he snorts.

 _“Royally,_ smartass. It’s pay up time. _Come. Here,”_ she commands, reaching out for him, – a half-plea, half-growl.

Caine reacts to the first part of the order before the second registers.

Shot straight in the chest, Jupiter clutches at her heart. Her hand comes away wet. She blinks at it helplessly, nearly tearing up.

“Oh, you’ve got to be kidding me!” she groans, collapsing back onto the couch like a dying swan – no, don’t go imagining Tchaikovsky’s Swan Lake ballet: Jupiter makes a very graceless swan, okay? She’s more of a puffin kind of girl, to be honest – blessed by nature with the talent to look ridiculous most of the time and utterly inept while out of her depth. So what of it? Caine likes her nonetheless. Actually, he likes her a bit too much, if the recent events are anything to go by. It’s a comforting thought.

Still, this is a cold, callous, cruel world.

Both rueful and encouraged, she contemplates the milky goop on her palm.

“You know, when I said ‘come’, I didn’t mean it _that_ way,” Jupiter complains. “Ugh, now I’ll have to wait for another fifteen minutes. _Fifteen minutes!_ I won’t survive this,” she bewails, dropping her head onto the cushion in exasperation and slinging her arm to cover her eyes: this world is way too brutal for her to look at. “This is a crime against humanity. _Queenanity._ Whatever. I’m bereft.”

Caine sighs, sits down beside her, carefully plucks up her wrist, lifting her arm slightly to peer under it.

“Your Majesty?”

She cracks an eye at him: even if this world is way too brutal for her to look at, Caine’s face is always a sight for sore eyes.

Not to mention his other body parts.

Which are currently on blatant display. She’s pretty sure the absence of clothes is the most ingenious thing humanity ever invented. What of the wheel, writing, the compass, the printing press, the light bulb, vaccination, antibiotics, contraceptives, computers and space travel! _Clotheslessness_ is the ultimate invention to top them all! At least it is when Caine is the one to demonstrate its advantages.

She pops her other eye open, too. It would be a shame to let such a splendid vista go to waste.

“You don’t have to look this smug, you know,” she grumbles at his grinning face.

“When Your Majesty is bemoaning my, uh, now former erection with such heartbroken despondency, I think I have the right to feel a little flattered.”

“You mock my grief!”

“Believe me, I’m mourning with you here, Your Majesty. Although I think I should alert to you to the fact that I still have two hands. And a mouth,” he points out helpfully.

“And a brain of a genius, apparently!” Jupiter lights up, coming to life again and making grabby hands at him. “Come on, put all those assorted body parts to good use already.”

So he does.

As it turns out, they don’t even have to wait for fifteen minutes.

It takes only eleven and a half.

The first time, that is.

**Author's Note:**

>  _This story can be viewed a loose follow-up to_[ **Rock My World**](https://archiveofourown.org/works/13878912/chapters/31931094), as well as a fluffy alternate-reality companion piece to [**Chapter 16**](https://archiveofourown.org/works/13392456/chapters/35868039) of [**No Fear of Heights**](https://archiveofourown.org/works/13392456/chapters/30678321). I was going to publish this story and the chapter simultaneously, but life happened and the draft got stuck in my ‘Unfinished’ folder.
> 
> _Even if you don’t celebrate March 8, you still can celebrate your femininity today. As an option, you could watch **The Vow** with our beloved Caine person! Surprisingly, it turned out not quite as saccharine as I had feared and any movie that has a barefoot Caine in it gets the top grade from me._
> 
> _As usual, your thoughts, emotions and constructive criticism make this author very happy. *hint, hint, nudge, nudge*_


End file.
